


Patience

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 18:05:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6205312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And he’s never been very good at patience, at waiting. (He’d waited to get out of Kyoto his whole life and look where he’d ended up.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patience

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to get the hell out of Kyoto, to go somewhere up north and to be able to absorb the snow-muffled silence while reading a book and sipping a nice blend of high-quality tea in bed. It had seemed like a good idea, but like so many things it had turned out absolutely horrible in practice. There’s something to be said for suffering, but not that much. At least he’s a year away from a degree and getting the hell out of Nemuro and back to some other city (not Kyoto, though).

He tries not to think of Tokyo, not to choose Tokyo by default. Graduation is still a year and change away; he has time to find a job and a city. Just because Akashi’s in Tokyo (and likely there to stay) doesn’t mean he should follow him. Akashi’s family has houses all over; if they’re even still together by graduation Akashi can just follow him. He doesn’t want to necessarily be the one following his boyfriend; there’s something weak and despicable about that. There’s something he instinctively resists to, swatting it away the way a cat swats an errant moth.

And, this weekend at least, he’s gotten Akashi to come and visit, come up on the train despite any misgivings and despite the preciousness of his time (it had been a hard-won battle, but a battle that Mayuzumi had won). And maybe he’s regretting it a little, because the weather in Tokyo has got to be better than the shitty weather here, a snowstorm just barely small enough to not be a blizzard while he stands on the uncovered train platform and digs his hands into his pockets.

The snow is coming down harder now, pelting his face and melting against his skin, fat flakes whirling in the air like falling leaves but worse, endless in their numbers and impossible to shield himself from. He’d gotten there late but Akashi’s train still hasn’t gotten in. His phone buzzes; he reaches into his pocket to check it. Akashi’s text says they’re still ten minutes out; Mayuzumi sighs. Typical. It’s not as if he’s going to be able to see the train through the haze of snow and clouds until it’s almost here.

He tightens his scarf. Akashi had better have dressed warmly, because as much as Mayuzumi enjoys playing the gentleman he’s not going to suffer in the cold any more for Akashi’s sake (which Akashi knows but he might get passive-aggressive about it anyway, and it’s one of the things that Mayuzumi simultaneously enjoys and loathes about Akashi). He hears something in the distance that sounds like a train horn, but he wonders if it’s wishful thinking, if the snow hasn’t muffled everything and his ears aren’t just ringing with frost.

The light cuts through the snow, a sword in the darkness, the cannons of a pirate ship on the high seas. Mayuzumi hunches his shoulders. The train is whipping the wind harder, faster, chilling his teeth and bones worse than ice cream on a cold day sliding through his mouth and down his throat and torso. The train slows, and finally comes to a stop—Mayuzumi just barely resists the urge to step closer and bathe himself in the warmth of its radiators, the steam coming off the edge of the platform from the quickly-sublimating snow. The doors open, and he’d picked the right place to wait because Akashi steps off, leather duffel bag in hand.

“Mayuzumi.”

“Akashi.”

This is not the place, not when other passengers, businessmen and confused travelers clutching shawls and coats to their body to keep out the intrusiveness of the cold, are gathering around. Akashi holds out his bag, and does he really expect Mayuzumi to take it? He does (typical entitled bastard) and Mayuzumi senses this is a battle he’s not going to win (and there will be a lot of those this weekend). He holds out his frozen palm; Akashi meets it and oh, his hands burn and the handles of the bag burn.

“You’re cold.”

“You get used to it,” says Mayuzumi.

* * *

The nights are still long and they get colder after Akashi leaves. A warm cup of tea is nothing when his bed is empty, even if his phone is buzzing on his table. And Akashi’s too much of a good kid to procrastinate and talk to Mayuzumi when he has tests and papers and duty coming up, and Mayuzumi wonders if it’s always going to be like this, if it’s always going to be time squeezed like water from a half-dried washcloth, barely there.

His imagination and memory are good enough to think about Akashi sleeping beside him, the smudges under his eyes and the sharp taste of spearmint tea on his breath, the way he’d accepted the cup like a king and Mayuzumi had resented that he’d even boiled the water on the stove for both of them. He thinks of Akashi’s bangs, longer again now, falling on his forehead, the sound of him running the blow dryer in the bathroom when Mayuzumi had been halfway falling asleep, the way he’d gingerly lifted the covers afterward and Mayuzumi had pulled him closer, snuggled up to him and brushed his feet against Akashi’s cold, bare ankles.

Is this enough? Maybe it has to be; maybe he won’t know until he moves to Tokyo (if he moves to Tokyo) and stays near Akashi, if he still can’t steal time from him (or bargain for it, which it’s much more likely that he’ll have to). Maybe he’ll just have to trust in fate and let it happen, let himself continue or let what’s left between the two of them deteriorate. Maybe he can’t determine this (and he certainly can’t on his own, it’s at least and at most up to Akashi as it is up to him). And he’s never been very good at patience, at waiting. (He’d waited to get out of Kyoto his whole life and look where he’d ended up.)

He thinks about Akashi, speaking, the movement of his mouth catching the light, his words reaching to Mayuzumi’s insides the way real words, spoken by real people, rarely do. Perhaps, for this, he can extend his patience a little bit longer.

**Author's Note:**

> for a prompt on tumblr (mayuaka + ldr + college)


End file.
